Sometimes you'll be able to save and other times you just gotta suck it up. Sometimes FBOs will let you use a courtesy car under certain circumstances, and use HomeAway and airbnb.com when in big cities. The most important thing is who you based with. Some people, well let's face it, suck. If you get along with the person or people youre with, let Nick know and he'll try his best to accommodate. Yes saving money is important but have fun, the job it self is utter torture, the cross country's are a relief, use good judgement, Nick is quite conservative but know his stuff, so don't try and pull anything over his eyes. You'll go places that are awesome and some that make you want to slit your wrist but make the most of it. It'll be a time you'll never forget.
Couldn't have said it better myself. The one piece I will add is this: remember why you're there. Building hours. You will find that busting your butt and getting projects done in good time (as opposed to coming up with excuses to not fly) will get you noticed and rewarded with better projects. Dink around and you'll get smaller projects in podunk towns because Nick will assume you can't handle the bigger ones. So, fly, fly, fly. Better to go take a peak and log 1-1.5 for the day than rot in a hotel because you thought winds aloft or turbulence might be out of parameters... especially early in the season where the window is only 4hrs. Get as much as you can (e.g. use those high overcast days to extend the window). I managed 700hrs my first season, all but 2 months over 100hrs, with a max of 137hrs in a month. Good luck.